Beacon Hill News

Healey Signs Public Employee Health Insurance Bill as System Nearly Runs Out of Money

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Editor’s note: Haverhill city employees are among those that rely on the state Group Insurance Commission for health insurance coverage. The prospect of the system running out of money alarmed employees who contacted WHAV. By Colin A. Young, State House News Service

Gov. Maura Healey gets 10 days to act on legislation that reaches her desk, but she used no more than four hours of that time to sign the Group Insurance Commission financing bill sent to her Thursday afternoon. Healey’s office said around 4:15 p.m. that she signed the bill, appropriating $240 million to cover claims for the rest of the fiscal year at the GIC, which oversees health insurance for 460,000 public employees. The House passed the bill Monday, the Senate followed suit Thursday and the two branches coordinated to get it to Healey’s desk shortly after noon Thursday.

Beacon Hill News

Reps. Vargas’ and Rogers’ Data Privacy Bill Takes Heat From Lawyer Representing Big Tech

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By Alison Kuznitz

Some Democratic lawmakers Wednesday clashed Wednesday with an attorney representing such tech companies as Amazon, Google, Netflix and Meta as Haverhill Rep. Andy X. Vargas and Rep. David Rogers pushed their bill for greater data privacy protections for Bay State residents. Vargas and Rogers pitched their proposal, dubbed the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, as a top priority for the Legislature to safeguard residents’ sensitive information online, particularly as companies collect and sell data without consumers’ full knowledge or consent. The bill would create “data minimization” standards, which limit information companies can store and process based on “what is reasonably necessary and proportional to their lawful purpose,” according to a legislative summary. “Data minimization is just the notion that the company uses it only for the specific purpose the person’s there—they don’t gather all this other information and start selling it to other third parties,” Rogers told the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity during its first hearing of the session. “I mean, it’s just common sense, it really is.

Beacon Hill News

Diggs and Payano Chair Public Hearing on Healey’s $62 billion Budget Plan; Receive Pleas for Aid

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By Chris Lisinski

The Joint Ways and Means Committee Tuesday heard please from the public as it wrapped up its review of Gov. Maura T. Healey’s $62 billion budget plan for the year that begins July 1. Rep. Kip A. Diggs and Sen. Pavel M. Payano, who represents Lawrence, Methuen and Haverhill, chaired the more than five hours of public comments, during which more than 150 people were signed up to testify, comes at a time budget writers are building a fiscal 2026 proposal that takes into account economic volatility, uncertainty about federal supports and funding demands from myriad special interest groups. Programs like the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program, which distributes produce to community food providers, are at risk of losing $3.5 million in federal funding for food purchasing, along with cuts to other federal nutrition programs that critics say will put “unprecedented strain” on people. With food pantry use up 80% between 2020 and 2023, Kate Adams, senior public policy manager at the Greater Boston Food Bank, requested $55.5 million in support for the food assistance program in the state budget, a roughly $10 million increase over last fiscal year. “We measured on a monthly basis how many individuals are coming to our network of 600 community food providers, and that number is 600,000 every month,” Adams said.

Beacon Hill News

Massachusetts Cabinet Secretary Warns of ‘Enormous’ MassHealth Cuts

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By Colin A. Young

Having spent her roughly 100-mile drive listening to the national news Monday morning and then hearing her colleagues at a budget hearing dig into the policy and finance specifics of crucial state programs, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa got a sinking feeling. “I feel like we’re trying to budget on quicksand at the moment,” the Northampton Democrat said as she and the rest of the Joint Ways and Means Committee gathered to review Gov. Maura Healey’s fiscal year 2026 budget plan with the part of state government that could face the deepest and most immediate consequences of looming federal shifts, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. While Beacon Hill continues its usual budget process, President Donald Trump has been moving to reshape the federal government and its spending, with all signs pointing to disruptions in the relationship between D.C. and states like Massachusetts. Medicaid is in the crosshairs of a pursuit for trillions of dollars in tax cuts and federal spending reductions over the next decade, and that could have massive impacts on MassHealth. The state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program system affords health care coverage to about two million Bay Staters and brings about $15 billion of federal revenue to Massachusetts.

Education

Healey Proposes Supplemental Budget with ‘Reimagining High School’ Initiative

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By Alison Kuznitz

Gov. Maura Healey wants to significantly boost English language learning services for adults and dramatically expand college and career readiness programs.

The investments are among the outlays Healey offered in a supplemental budget filed Wednesday that charts a path for spending about $1.3 billion in unallocated income surtax receipts from wealthier households. “Across House 1 (and) this supplemental budget, our proposal for FY ‘26 proposes a near-even split between Fair Share funding between education and transportation,” Administration and Finance Secretary Matt Gorzkowicz said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “When you combine what we put in the operating budget with what we put in the supplemental budget, we’ve got equity between (the) two.”

Healey recommended $32.5 million for college and career readiness programs that the governor’s team called “Reimagining High School” initiatives. The administration expects that money will help lead to more than 10,000 students participating in Innovation Career Pathways—which offer coursework and training in fields such as information technology, engineering, health care, life sciences and advanced manufacturing — across 150 high schools. The funding will also support more than 13,500 students who are projected to participate in early college programs across 100 high schools; more than 61,500 students involved in Career Technical Education programs, across 100 high schools, that the administration wants to modernize; and 1,500 teachers who will receive professional development and curriculum aid for advanced courses.

Education

Healey Proposes $2.5 Billion to Improve Public College Campuses, Cites Buildings Built in 70s

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By Colin A. Young

Forecasting “a transformative impact on the economic landscape of our state,” Gov. Maura Healey detailed plans Tuesday to pump at least $2.5 billion into campus facilities at the University of Massachusetts, state universities and community colleges by the middle of the 2030s. The governor outlined her new proposal after touring the Cyber Range at Bridgewater State University, a hands-on lab where she lamented that too many public higher education campuses don’t have the proper facilities to train students for cutting-edge jobs that can keep the state economically competitive. “Our public university and college campuses have suffered from historic underinvestment since they were built in the 1970s. We refuse to kick the can down the road any longer when it comes to educating our kids and training our workers of tomorrow,” the governor said, using the same idiom she has taken to using when talking about transportation financing. “With these transformative infrastructure investments, we will give students a cutting-edge education in our affordable public universities and colleges, create thousands of good-paying jobs for our workers and keep our state economically competitive for years to come.”

Northern Essex Community College’s Haverhill campus, built in 1971, is one such property.

Education

As Community College Enrollment Grows, Teachers Say Pay Raises Will Resolve Understaffing

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By Sam Drysdale

As enrollment at community colleges booms under the state’s new free tuition program, the faculty that teach and support the burgeoning population are asking for their first wage equity adjustment in 25 years. “Our colleges are facing a wage and working conditions crisis that threatens board initiatives like the equity agenda and workforce development,” Joe Nardoni, vice president of the union that represents the 15 community colleges’ faculty and professional staff members, told members of the Board of Higher Education on Tuesday. Lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey made community college free for all Massachusetts residents starting this past fall, saying the program would create opportunities for low-income Bay Staters and promote racial equity. The “free” label seems to have succeeded in attracting more students to campus: between the fall of 2023 and fall 2024, the first semester that tuition and fees were waived, the state’s 15 community colleges added 9,492 students—a 14% boost. That jump followed another annual enrollment increase, 8.7% in 2023, after lawmakers and Healey that year made community college free for students 25 and older, which reversed more than a decade of declines in community college enrollment.

Beacon Hill News

Auditor DiZoglio Says Senate Democrats are Breaking the Law with Audit Response

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By Alison Kuznitz

The group of Senate Democrats tasked with handling Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s quest to probe the legislature agreed Monday to meet with her office. While senators said they are looking for “prompt and constructive engagement,” DiZoglio said the response to her audit launch is the latest example of lawmakers “breaking the law.”

In a five-page letter responding to DiZoglio’s repeated outreach, subcommittee chair Sen. Cindy Friedman and Sens. Will Brownsberger, Jo Comerford and Paul Feeney proposed three possible times to meet on either Jan. 29 or Jan. 30.